Ben

When I studied to become a Radio Officer (Marine, not Navy) I joined a Radar Maintenance class with six guys from various parts of India.

They added a new page to my ‘technique’. I visited them and saw all their notes plastered on their walls. They didn’t sit and revise - they walked around and stared at the walls… it was amazing.

So first of all, we’d do a class - maybe a couple of hours - where I’d mark diagrams (using colours) and take notes (also using highlighters to mark important sections of printed notes).

• After the class, during break, I’d spend the first five minutes just scanning over the whole class one time.

• When I got home later, I’d go over it again for about 15 minutes and basically blu-tac them onto the walls. Then I’d scan across the older notes.

Within a week of scanning them, I could basically scan from further away until I could remember most of what was on them without being close enough to read them.

• Only tidy away what you know - but be sure you know it before you move it to longer term storage. I could basically recite the contents of an A4 sheet by just scanning down the headings at this stage.

When I was sure I’d internalised a sheet, I could take it down and stick it in my folder.

The hardest subjects are the most boring, and often least relevant, parts of the course. I think I must have put in 80% of my efforts into less than 10% of the actual coursework.

• Flashcards are awesome. You should have them in your pocket - Question one side, Answer on the back. You should have them in your pocket always, in the toilet, on a bus, wherever you go. If you do just 5 minute sessions multiple times every day then you’ll know them all at the end of the week.

As a testament to how well this worked, I remember learning hundreds of ‘Q’ codes. If you randomly throw one up at me, I’ll remember every detail…

Stuff I remember learning iin 1984, like QRA - Q: What is the name of your vessel/station? or QRK for 'What is the readability of my signals?` with answers rated from 1 to 5.

I never went to sea - so I never used this stuff after I finished College (Margarette Thatcher put the plug on that) but it’s all there.

I’m not sure it matters more TBH… but I basically stopped Reddit for 2 days, and now just get drawn back to read the occasional post - but don’t bother commenting.

With the downtick in Reddit, I remembered that I hadn’t read a book for a month or two, so I headed over to Annies Archive and grabbed a bunch to add to my Kindle…

So I now downloaded 3 versions of ‘Great Expectations’ and am reading that book before watching them - but also have “Welcome to the MonkeyHouse” by Kurt Vonnegut and “The Book Thief” grabbed from Annie’s Archive.

Basically now I’m spending less than half the time on net than I was before.

• Levar Burton Reads - good short stories (today “D.P.” by Kurt Vonnegut)
• Behind the Bastards this week: Stockton Rush, inventor of the Deathsub
• The Infinite Monkey Cage
• Evil Genius with Russell Kane (BBC) - last week, David Bowie… was he a genius, or simply evil?
• Something Rhymes with Purple - Fascinating look at English language.
• Drama of the Week (BBC) - occasionally brilliant plays.
• Desert Island Disks - Good when doing chores.

Firefox.

Thinking about the possibility of brain-computer interfacing is insane. It’ll be possible to shove a thought into your shopping list… convert your dream into a text file to edit and include in your book later.

I do think writing by hand is a good skill to teach at least until highschool… from then on, there should be more accessible ways of getting your notes down and organised - and also easy to search and re-organise.

It’s strange that after I tested out a couple of REALLY dirt cheap chinese pens to replace my old, trusty, fountain pen which got lost - this ended up with me having three transparent plastic pens (WingSung) that cost $2 each - and now my son has stolen one for school, filled with some Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue (every bit as nice as a blue EnerGel) but with a couple of ink-eradicator pens, he says it’s better and faster than using the alternatives (FriXion is way overpriced, and not nearly as nice as a proper GelPen - and the rest of the competition is just nasty).

I also use a double-edged safety razor to shave, and found out (when I figured it was something most folks just hadn’t thought about) that a few of my friends went there a year or two back… so many things should never need to die out, but obviously some things should be skipped…

Longer form (essays, dissertations, anything more than a page) is certainly a bit of a waste of time. I wrote a list of ‘to read’ books and stuck it up in my wardrobe, but the list changed… so now it’s digital and that paper got trashed.

Another 100 years should see more convenient and effective alternatives.

This is crazy - for sure, in many countries it can be taken straight from the tap depending on the reliability of infrastructure… but to waste energy boiling it??? No thanks.

In England, I moved a few times - some places have great tasting water - others not so great - meaning it’s always safe (and ok for brewing or cooking) but not so good for drinking from the tap.

In Scotland (a couple of places I stayed and worked) it’s a toss up whether you should drink the tapwater, or go to your local and take another dram from the top row… those Single Malt Whiskeys made with water from Scotland are amazing… but both are safe in moderation.

In Bangkok, if I don’t clean my shower out monthly, it ends up with brown gunge building up, so I certainly don’t drink the stuff… and it’s hard to know how clean it is (though we’re told it’s certainly drinkable at source, it has a long way to come to my house - and the pressure of the system is low… another red flag). Visiting tropical islands, you see some resorts are connected via long plastic pipes which are often on the surface (in the sun) and so definitely not the best candidate for anything more than a shower.

In Bangkok too, unless you can test it yourself you shouldn’t drink it - but I fail to see why you’d decide to boil dirty water and drink it, seeing as most countries with inadequate tap water have drinking water.

I wouldn’t use ‘boiled tap water’ to make my pasta either.

I have six large bottles which gets topped up each week, to make sure I have plenty of water to cook and drink with… If I didn’t, then I’d invest in a good water filtration system.

Aha, yes - this is the first (internal) issue. The wider issue is - how can these comments be included in search engine results?

The ultimate power of Reddit is that it shows up everywhere in search. Lemmy.ml, lemmy.world, BeeHaw etc… they just don’t.

For limited opportunities to pee, I’d carry a good sized bottle and limit drinking to sipping water/an electrolyte beverage through a straw.

For limiting poop, I’d try to be empty ahead of time, and just take something solid like bread and cheese which means you probably could go through three days without pooping.